Last Thursday I leave work, get into my car and the radio is playing a song I haven't heard for at least a decade: Southern Cross - Crosby, Stills and Nash.
Got out of town on a boat goin' to southern islands,
Sailing a reach before a followin' sea.
She was makin' for the trades on the outside,
And the downhill run to Papeete Bay.
Off the wind on this heading lie the Marquesas.
We got eighty feet of the waterline
Nicely making way.
In a noisy bar in Avalon I tried to call you,
But on a midnight watch I realized why twice you ran away.
Think about how many times I have fallen.
Spirits are using me, larger voices callin'.
What Heaven brought you and me cannot be forgotten.
Sailing a reach before a followin' sea.
She was makin' for the trades on the outside,
And the downhill run to Papeete Bay.
Off the wind on this heading lie the Marquesas.
We got eighty feet of the waterline
Nicely making way.
In a noisy bar in Avalon I tried to call you,
But on a midnight watch I realized why twice you ran away.
Think about how many times I have fallen.
Spirits are using me, larger voices callin'.
What Heaven brought you and me cannot be forgotten.
I'm listening to it, feeling nostalgic and slightly haunted as I do every time I hear it but maybe slightly more that day. As I'm driving, I can clearly see my self and the person that I seriously dated in my early 20's who I associated the song with. Hell I can even smell the ocean and seaweed, feel my eyes burning from the smoke drifting from the fire pit we had going on Dana Point beach. I can even remember the feel of the damp sand under my feet. It was sort of like time travel.
The nostalgic moment passes; I pull into my driveway, cook dinner, log into SL and think no more about it really.
Friday morning I get into my car and what's playing on the radio? Southern Cross.
When you see the Southern Cross for the first time,
You understand now why you came this way,
'Cause the truth you might be runnin' from is so small,
But it's as big as the promise, the promise of a coming day.
So I'm sailing for tomorrow, my dreams are a-dyin',
And my love is an anchor tied to you, tied with a silver chain.
I have my ship and all her flags are a-flyin'.
She is all that I have left and music is her name.
Think about how many times I have fallen.
Spirits are using me, larger voices callin'.
What Heaven brought you and me cannot be forgotten.
I have been around the world,
Lookin' for that woman, girl,
Who knows love can endure,
And you know it will (and you know it will).
So we cheated and we lied and we tested,
And we never failed to fail, it was the easiest thing to do.
You will survive being bested,
But somebody fine will come along make me forget about loving you
At the Southern Cross.
You understand now why you came this way,
'Cause the truth you might be runnin' from is so small,
But it's as big as the promise, the promise of a coming day.
So I'm sailing for tomorrow, my dreams are a-dyin',
And my love is an anchor tied to you, tied with a silver chain.
I have my ship and all her flags are a-flyin'.
She is all that I have left and music is her name.
Think about how many times I have fallen.
Spirits are using me, larger voices callin'.
What Heaven brought you and me cannot be forgotten.
I have been around the world,
Lookin' for that woman, girl,
Who knows love can endure,
And you know it will (and you know it will).
So we cheated and we lied and we tested,
And we never failed to fail, it was the easiest thing to do.
You will survive being bested,
But somebody fine will come along make me forget about loving you
At the Southern Cross.
Bleh... Now the song and the memory associated with it is starting to make me feel sad and a little haunted because more than the Cailfornia sand gave me cold feet that weekend, twenty plus years ago and I simply disappeared off the face of the earth as far as the person I was dating was concerned. It wasn't pretty, I'm not proud of it but at the time, I could not go further, and I figured ending things on a good note was the best thing to do. In retrospect, it was a very self-centered decision.
At least that's the conclusion that I came to listening to the radio Friday morning.
So I walk into the office, feeling a little morose, plop down at my computer and forget about the whole thing as I change my focus to work. Except I still have this small, nagging sensation of anxiety in my stomach.
Just before the day ends, one of our US engineers is giving an engineer from our Australian office a tour of our facility and they walk past my office. The engineer from Australia stops in front of my office because it's right next to the lab and guess who the visiting engineer is?
It was instant recognition - which is not very probable after 20 plus years, but there he was and there I was. I wish I could say that I was flabergasted, but I wasn't. I think that having heard the song on the radio, associating it with the memory prepared me in some odd way.
The moment of recognition was a little ackward to say the least, but we got past it and he dropped back by my office before he left and told me a little about his life and I told him a little about mine. He's married, has one grown son and is happy.
So the purpose of this post? Well has anyone else had this sort of odd coincidence?
Running into him again when we both live on opposite sides of the world is the smallest of the coincidence for me. Thinking about him because of a song that is hardly ever played on the radio that I hear twice in two days before running into him was more disturbing.
Life is just... well... weird.
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